Study: Suicide Talk On Twitter Mirrors State Suicide Rates.

USA Today (10/10, Jayson) reports that research published in the journal Crisis suggests that “suicide talk on Twitter mirrors state suicide rates closely enough that the social network could prove to be an early-warning system for those at risk.” The researchers “found that Midwestern and Western states and Alaska had a higher proportion of suicide-related tweeters than expected, as well as higher actual rates of suicide.” The investigators found that “the opposite was true for Southern and Eastern states.”